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I felt like a fool.
He planned all of this.
My chest ached with the pain of his betrayal.
I glanced over at Dacia, hoping to find some strength.
Instead, my older sister was crumpling and the sight tore at me.
Dacia was dubbed an ice princess since her high school days. She was tough as nails. Walking around school with her pom-poms and cheerleading skirt hadn’t changed that.
Now her expression was anything but ice.
I reached forward to cup the back of her hand with my own clammy palm.
“How do they know?” Dacia said with a chilling quality, pushing her headband off her blond hair. “I-It was only a few times and—”
“One time or a few times doesn’t matter.” Mother cast her a disgruntled expression while I gave her a glare for talking to Dacia that way. “Copulating with an officer? That was bound to come out. Even you should know that you never,everfuck the authority. I can’t say I’m surprised, though. You’ve always been a disappointment in this regard.”
Dacia knew she screwed up. But now wasn’t the time to berate her.
“Don’t talk to her that way,” I hissed at Mother. “We can’t change the past, but now we must figure out a way to solve this situation.”
Dacia snapped out of her stupor and drew out a disbelieving laugh. “You want to judge me? Pray tell, what does Zeno have on you? What could cause the mighty Diane Hill to fall at the mercy of a fucking man, eh?”
Eerie silence fell over our table.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Alberto approaching the scene with a wince.
“Something that I swore to take to the grave.”
The flames in the fireplace crackled with the somber statement.
“If we bend to his will, can we continue living our lives like this never happened?” I asked, finally slicing the tension in the air. “You’ll help close Armel’s case without delivering justice and essentially save our asses?”
It was such a morbid way to look at it.
Our lives versus Armel’s justice.
“We cannot live our lives like this never happened.” Mother shook her head. “The De la Croixes are sacrosanct. We ruffled their feathers. Things will never be the same.”
Great. I let a criminal go down on me and I even deep-throated his dirty dick. Another thing to check off my bucket list. On the bright side, it was more inspiration for a dark romance novel, right?
“Even after Armel’s case is closed, there’s still one more thing Zeno wants.”
“And what would that be?” I replied bitterly.
Mother pinned me with a haunted look. “You, Darla. Zeno wants to marry you.”
There were only two times in my life where I felt consumed with blind rage.
The first time was when I found out Callie Mackowski, Ella’s and my ex bitch of a best friend, had poisoned us against each other in high school. I’d dealt with it by whacking her across the face with her Fendi purse and engaging in the cat fight of the century, smack in the middle of St. Victoria’s foyer.
The second time I felt consumed with blind rage was right this moment.
Mother kept emphasizing that if I didn’t comply, not only would we lose all forms of respect in our personal and professional lives, but Zeno’s family would drain mine of every cent until we were living on the streets.
I barely heard her over the white noise rushing in my ears.
